A Child of the People And Other Poems. By James Chapman Woods |
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HOLIDAYS. |
 | A Child of the People |  |
163
HOLIDAYS.
Hear ye, whose lives along the ridge of toil
Crawl through a dull monotony of days;
Who, with your factories' smoke and forges' blaze,
Clatter and clang, and endless whirl and broil,
Stamp blistering footprints in the virgin soil,
And dull each sense long ere the life decays:—
The drudge works better for his hour of grace;
Ye snap at last, who tighten still the coil.
Crawl through a dull monotony of days;
Who, with your factories' smoke and forges' blaze,
Clatter and clang, and endless whirl and broil,
Stamp blistering footprints in the virgin soil,
And dull each sense long ere the life decays:—
The drudge works better for his hour of grace;
Ye snap at last, who tighten still the coil.
And Nature dwells in reach of narrowest means,
And woos her weariest children to her rest.
Track to their heads the streams that work your mills:
Will ye grow mockeries of your own machines,
While the kind mother hath a woodland nest
In every cleft and wrinkle of your hills?
And woos her weariest children to her rest.
Track to their heads the streams that work your mills:
Will ye grow mockeries of your own machines,
While the kind mother hath a woodland nest
In every cleft and wrinkle of your hills?
| A Child of the People | |